Justice Department Tells Judge That Microsoft Settlement Is Tough on Company

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department sought Thursday to convince the judge in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust case that its landmark settlement with the software giant will help consumers and rein in the company's illegal business behavior.

In a 68-page court filing, Justice lawyers defended the settlement they negotiated between Microsoft and nine states. Critics, including Microsoft rivals and some independent antitrust experts, have said the agreement is inadequate. They have charged that the company will be able to bypass many of the sanctions because of vague language.

But in the filing, government lawyers assured the judge that the settlement "will eliminate Microsoft's illegal practices, prevent recurrence of the same or similar practices and restore the competitive threat" by rival companies to the dominant Windows operating system.

The government also sought to clarify a part of the settlement that allows Microsoft to keep secret information that might broadly violate the security of its anti-piracy technology, which prevents the illegal copying of music or movies. It is considered especially important and lucrative as entertainment increasingly is delivered in digital formats.

The government told the judge that Microsoft must disclose to competitors all the capabilities of its anti-piracy music technology under the latest version of Windows, called XP. The government said that mandatory disclosure "makes these features available to competing software and hardware developers."

The government said it will require Microsoft to live up to its promises through "strong enforcement provisions" and can seek criminal penalties and civil fines if the company violates the deal.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates defended the settlement as tough but one that "we're really pleased to have." Nine other states led by California, Iowa and Connecticut rejected it and will ask U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to impose tougher penalties during hearings next year.

"Despite the restrictions and the things in this settlement, having the uncertainty removed and the resource-drain removed we think is very positive, not only for Microsoft but for the industry," Gates said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press. "We're hopeful to get it put behind us."

The judge, who must approve the settlement, tentatively set a hearing for February to review the deal. She has not signaled publicly how she might rule but has pressed the sides strongly to negotiate an end to the case.

Microsoft and the Justice Department have suffered during such reviews before. Another judge, Stanley Sporkin, now retired, scrapped a proposed settlement between Gates and the government in a closely related case in February 1995, when Sporkin determined the decree was not in the public interest.

The department promised in its 1995 settlement that it would "end Microsoft's unlawful practices that restrain trade and perpetuate its monopoly power." Yet as Sporkin rejected it, he complained that, "simply telling a defendant to go forth and sin no more does little or nothing to address the unfair advantage is has already gained."

A U.S. appeals court in spring 1995 overturned Sporkin's decision, saying that he relied on inappropriate evidence, and removed Sporkin from the case.

Another federal judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, approved that settlement in August 1995. But Jackson himself was removed from the case this year by the same appeals court for "flagrant" ethical violations, after he secretly granted interviews to reporters during the trial.

Gates expressed hope again Thursday that more states will agree to join the settlement. "We really don't know exactly what will happen with the states. We hope they come in, and we're just moving forward," he said.

Microsoft also asked the judge on Thursday to formally recognize Charles Rule, the former top antitrust official during the Reagan administration, as one of its new lawyers. Microsoft hired Rule in the earliest days of the trial as an adviser, and he was pivotal in negotiating the latest settlement with the government.

Rule, for years, has been personally acquainted with Charles James, the new antitrust chief in the Bush administration.

The settlement requires Microsoft to disclose technical details to help rivals make their products work more closely with its monopoly Windows operating system and to give an oversight panel full access to its books and plans for five years. It also bans exclusive contracts with computer makers that put rival software vendors at a disadvantage.

Harr, do you believe that Jackson was (a) happy or (b) angry when his injunction against Microsoft resulting from its so-called violation of the original consent decree was slammed back in his face by the Appeals Court? Was Jackson just being helpful when he routinely napped during the presentation of Microsoft witnesses? Was Jackson being fair when it denied Microsoft a remedy hearing, a clear violation of its rights? Why did Jackson routinely refuse to permit Microsoft to enter evidence which bolstered its case into the record? And why did Jackson feel that he had the right to talk to reporters in secret when ethics rules clearly showed that he shouldn't be doing so?

The bottom line is that a pattern of conduct emerges which, although not meeting the Appeals Court's legal standard for bias (in other words, there was no smoking gun), would convince the average person that Jackson had a grudge against Microsoft from the very start.

What I'm suggesting to you is that the only evidence which would have convinced this Appeals Court would have been an outright admission on the part of Jackson. And, since Jackson denied it, the legal standard was too tough a standard for MS to climb. I'm sure that Jackson got a pretty good laugh after he issued his ruling. But it probably stings, now that he's been rebuked by the Appeals Court for breaking ethics rules. The guy deserves to be impeached, in my opinion.

And, since Jackson denied it, the legal standard was too tough a standard for MS to climb.

Excuse me? Did you read the appeals court decision? Any of the quotes I just offered? Am I 'speaking' to air?

Microsoft made no allegations of actual bias whatsoever! They made none of those claims in court, save the 'he spoke to the press a little too early' whine.

They never even *tried* to prove actual bias. They just complained about how it looked, knowing that it the mandatory response to their complaint was removal.

MS went Judge Shopping.

And as I posted above, direct quote -- Thus, although Microsoft alleged only appearance of bias, not actual bias, we have reviewed the record with painstaking care and have discerned no evidence of actual bias.

There was no evidence of bias, such as 'sleeping during MS's witnesses'. You're making that all up, in a lame attempt to put the blame for all this on the Judge.

You could save us all a lot of typing if you'd actually go read some of the court decisions and evidence in question . . .

I think DominicHarr is Scott McNealy.

Oh, and just F.Y.I., I'm not in any way a fan or 'partisan' of Sun's. I find their hardware far too expensive for what you get. They're outstanding machines, but you can get the same performance for half the price.

Less, with a Linux cluster . . .

I'm only a 'cross-platform' programming partisan. Which does lead me to champion Java, of course.

But other than Java, I couldn't give a rats rear end about Sun. Now, compare that to the MS side of this discussion, which is dominated by MS employees who *only* use MS products, even when better choices are available.

Ah, how much fun it is to ride in a one-horse partisan parade, yes? I think the MS people are so blind because any developer willing to actually *look* at other technologies already switched away from MS years ago.

The only ones *left* doing MS stuff are the people afraid to evaluate alternatives.

Let me guess, you're Bill Gates and Shrub2000 is Steve Ballmer?

Nope. I keep asking the Linux gurus for help here (trying to switch away from MS), but to no avail. It seems like us Linux newbies are too much trouble here, and in the news groups. Oh well.

Believe me if there were a comerecially viable,
(mac is not commercially viable for me so don't bother)
way to get into a linux system I would. But, I have
purchased all this software I use in business and
there is no way out of the the microsoft monopoly.
(and now it is a legally recognized monopoly)
I feel microsoft is a large "me too" second rate software
writer. But then again vhs was second rate to beta.

oh well. back to the garage.

Nope. I keep asking the Linux gurus for help here (trying to switch away from MS), but to no avail. It seems like us Linuxnewbies are too much trouble here...

Probably because help-desk questions are quite usually considered off-topic. Not that I don't do this myself sometimes. :) You've probably noticed that the threads that do digress to technical discussions generally end up focusing on network administration and Java and the sorts of things that the techmeisters like Bush2000 and Innocentbystander are concerned with.

I'm a Linux newbie myself, and would love a forum to discuss Linux, but it shouldn't be done in the middle of a political discussion. I'm wondering if our intrepid founder and the moderators would mind a separate thread for Linux desktop questions? How about it Jim? Is such a thing too far from your original concept for FreeRepublic?

I usually ask my questions in those vanity posts that others originate and filed in tech_index. But I get your point.

I have to admit to being a happy lad after finally getting a linux-based router and firewall working. Smoothwall. It was a piece of cake to install and setup. I never could get Mandrake to work properly with my ADSL connection. Now if I can just find a cheap 486 or early Pentium box so I can free up the more powerful box I'm using.

Well, since we're the only people left on this thread anyway... :)

The most useful linux forum I've found is the Corel WP Office for Linux newsgroup, but it's focused mostly on problems with the office suite. I understand the frustration with the techies, though...there doesn't seem to be a real end-user focused forum anywhere (particularly for desktop use-the Corel forum is at least of some use there). You have to be at least a hobbiest (as I am--I know just enough to be dangerous) to even begin to understand some of the discussions.

I suppose this is probably one of the barriers to the market for Linux. Mandrake 8.0 installed like a champ on my machine, and some of the bundled software is "way cool," but if you have problems with other applications, tech support is limited to what you can glean off the net for yourself--some of it better than others.

Mandrake 8 installs much better than 8.1, but X-windows looks a lot better (especially fonts) in 8.1. I reinstalled 8.1 on a workstation yesterday, and was having all kinds of hardware problems. They boiled dow to using the ext3 file system. I reinstalled using ext2 (linux 2) and everything worked.

Have you tried SuSe? Version 7.3 is reported as a Windows slayer at The Register, and a breeze to install and setup.

MDK 8.0 Did install nicely for me. I just wrote and printed my first Microsoft-free document tonight (****grin***) on WordPerfect for Linux and was very pleased at how the Linux version functions. You're right about the fonts though-they do look a bit different.

I'll probably be holding on to my Mandrake install for now since I paid good money for it (I know I could've downloaded it for free but I'm an impatient person and the version I bought included a horde of other killer apps.) My wife and I are actually interested in going a different route from windoze with our desktop configuration (we're hotkey fanatics--must come from working in WP for so long) so I'll probably work with tweaking all the various options and window-manager alternatives until it suits us...

Yet another advantage of the Open-Source movement--the sheer diversity enhances your ability to customize your environment to suit your own needs--not someone else's impression of your needs.

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